Segun Balogun, former helmsman at LASACO Assurance Plc is an embodiment of sterling qualities and a distinguished insurance practitioner with skills and experience spanning 35 years. Balogun’s well-built firebrand image in the boardroom can be traced to his secondary school at age 15 in 1976 when he joined the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN). By 1984, he had chosen a career path in insurance after his first degree at the University of Lagos. His commitment to the profession aside, Balogun’s legendary and unique ability propelled his rise to the top in the industry. Within a few years, he demonstrated exceptional grasp of leadership and administration in the private sector where he successfully headed many insurance institutions as MD/CEO for 25 consecutive years. Balogun retired recently at 60. This astute and consummate insurance guru tells Funke Olaode that he is retired but not tired as his tomorrow remains even brighter.
With a youthful face and radiant skin that glows beneath his flowing white apparel, you could mistake him for a man in his early 50s. Alas! He is 60. He radiates accomplishment as he danced majestically into the waiting embrace of his ex-classmates that sunny afternoon inside a prestigious hotel at GRA, Ikeja, Lagos. It was a birthday bash/ luncheon retirement organized by Ansar-Ud-Deen High School Surulere Old Boys’ Association (AHOSA) to celebrate one of their own who distinguished himself in his career and reached the top.
Segun Balogun, a recently retired MD/CEO at LASACO Assurance Plc has a date with history in the corporate world. Fresh from secondary school in 1976, Balogun joined the Institute of Chartered Accountant of Nigeria (ICAN) where he worked for three years, his future in the corporate world had been literarily sealed.
Born on May 29, 1961 in Lagos Island, Balogun started his primary school at St. Paul’s Breadfruit Street from 1967 to 1971. He gained admission to Ansar-Ud-Deen Secondary Commercial School now Ansar-Ud-Deen High School, along Falolu Road, Surulere, Lagos in January 1972 where he obtained the West African School Certificate in June 1976. After secondary school, Balogun joined the Institute of Chartered Accountant of Nigeria (ICAN) from 1976 to December 1979, thereafter proceeded to Obokun GCE School, Ijebu-Ijesa in the old Oyo State for his GCE ‘A’Level.
With his stint with ICAN, one would have thought Balogun’s career would been tilted towards accounting. But destiny played a fast one on him. Going down memory lane, Balogun recalled: “The ambition really was to study accounting and my stint at ICAN gave me an edge, at that time I interacted with a lot of intelligent people. I remembered the president of ICAN in those years, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979 and 1980; the likes of Chief Mbanefo, Cecilia Oyediran, John Adepoju Balogun, Mr. Ogunde, Mr. Oguntuga, those were the people that were running ICAN at that period. I was like a utility staff within the organization and I made sure that I was very well focused.”
Recounting how he abandoned his dream of being an accountant, Balogun said he was inspired by the doyen of insurance in Nigeria, Prof. Joe Irukwu. “Actually, I was meant to be an accountant. Unfortunately, UNILAG did not offer me accounting but insurance. I took insurance as my first degree programme and even had the opportunity to change to accounting at the end of the year. But something happened that altered that decision for ever. This was in 1981. I observed that insurance sector was just growing then and there were not too many graduates in the insurance profession. We were inspired by somebody who came to speak to us in year one at the University of Lagos. It was Professor Joe Irukwu, they call him ‘Prof. of insurance.’ Prof. Irukwu spoke to us about the opportunities in insurance With words of assurance and insurance from the guru himself, I was convinced and I made up my mind in my year one to stick to insurance. That decision later paid off.”
He graduated from UNILAG in June 1984 with a degree in insurance and did his mandatory one-year youth service in Akure, Ondo State. He qualified as an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute of London in 1987.
In January 1986, Balogun began his professional insurance career with Glanvill Enthoven Insurance Brokers. In March of the same year, he joined UNIC Insurance Plc and left for Lagos State Assurance Company Limited (which later became LASACO Assurance Limited where he was a pioneer staff in 1989 till January 1992.
Within a few years, he demonstrated exceptional grasp of leadership and administration in his field where he successfully headed many insurance institutions as MD/CEO for 25 consecutive years.
He joined Metropolitan Trust Insurance Company Limited as a pioneer staff in February 1992, and became its MD/CEO in July 1996 to August 2001.
In September 2001, Balogun took the leadership mantle as MD/CEO at WAPIC Plc where he served for 12 years, taking the company from the lower rung of the industry ladder to being one of the top five insurance companies in Nigeria. It was during his time that the company won several laurels of the Nigerian Stock Exchange and became a company to reckon with in the insurance industry. From making a huge impact at WAPIC, he joined FBN Insurance Ltd and was seconded to serve as the MD/CEO of FBN General Insurance Ltd (formerly OASIS Insurance Plc) in November 2013 to October 2015.He moved to LASACO Assurance Plc in November 2015 as Deputy Managing Director and became MD/CEO in May 2016 a position he held until 2021 when he retired.
With a deep passion for teaching and imparting knowledge in future generation of insurance practitioners, Balogun was a part-time tutor for students writing professional examinations for several years in the 1990s. A man of many parts, Balogun is an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute of London, Fellow Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria, Member of the Institute of Directors, and a distinguished awardee of The University of Lagos. He is an active member of Ikoyi Club, Island Club, Eko Club and Lagos Lawn Tennis Club.
In all of his achievements, Balogun still exudes a sense of gratitude to God and his parents. Though with very humble beginnings, he still had parental support through his secondary school days. Flashback to his primary school days, he spent only five years to complete that phase.
“In primary school, when my colleagues were spending about eight years, because in those days you will start from infant one, infant two, standard one, standard two up to standard six and each is one year. Instead of spending eight years in primary school, I spent five years. I did not get to primary six; I got double promotion and in five years I was out of primary school. Joined the secondary school at a very young age, I was just about 11 years old and left at 15 years. I started working almost immediately and I even got the job on a platter of gold. I left school in June 1976 and started work in July of that same year when my result was not out.”
He gained admission into the University of Lagos, purely on merit; thus laying the precedence for his career as a professional.
“No godfather anywhere apart from God himself. And no educated parents that can put you through or direct you or tell you that this is how to go. My parents also tried their best in my educational pursuits to the extent that they made sure that yes, they saw me through up to secondary school. And when I was at the university, they also tried in their own little way. But because I had worked for almost four years before I entered the university, I had already saved enough money to see me through. And again my dad in particular will say one of the things you need to do in life to make you cross the border is to face what you are doing. If it is education face it very well, if it is business face it very well. He faced his own business and did well in his own way but at that period what you used to measure success is really not money. And what they put in me then was that you must be serious with whatever you do. If you don’t want to be serious don’t go into it,” he said.
With 45 years in the corporate world of which 35 years were spent in active service, the astute and consummate insurance guru said he may retire but not tired as his tomorrow remains even brighter. “For me, I take things as they come. I know I am in another phase of life now and I know that once your steps are ordered by God there can’t be any mountain that will be too difficult for you to surmount. I am a grandfather and I hope one day I will be great grandfather. There is no mountain that I envisage that won’t be surmountable.”
Giving tips on how to be a successful professional, Balogun said it is not a rocket science. For him, dedication, and commitment are as important as being an outstanding professional. “To be successful in anything you do, you must do more than what the others are doing. And I tell the young people that everybody cannot get to the top. Those who get to the top, two or three things determine that. One, you must hand over what you do to God. That is the very first step. Once you handover to God and you tell him to always direct your steps, and you are very, very good at what you are doing and you are dedicated, you are determined to get to the top. When others are spending one hour doing something, you spend three hours, you will come out better than them. When others are sleeping by 9 o’clock, 8 o’clock, you must wake up in the middle of the night when it is very quiet to sit down and think of ideas that are new that you can introduce and make you better or make you ahead of others. You must be focused; you must be dedicated and more importantly which is the very first thing I said, hand it over to God.”
On his view on insurance losing its allure, he said for people to embrace insurance, the economy must be healthy because many people prioritise basic needs of food, clothing and shelter above the need to get insurance plans.
“The thing about insurance is that first and foremost in any economy or in any country, it is when people are not hungry, when they are well fed that they can think of other things that they need to do. You must have shelter, you must have food, and once those two basic things are there that is when you can begin to think of other things. In Nigeria, we still have a lot of deficit in shelter, not everybody has the kind of accommodation they should have. Again, talking about being fed, not many people can actually say yes, they eat what they like.
Some cannot even afford to eat two times a day. So, in an environment or an economy like that, you can’t actually get people thinking of insurance. And unfortunately too, the way insurance was at the beginning before the regulators became hard, we had a lot of fake insurance companies and companies that were not actually licensed. And even as we speak now we still have a lot of fake insurances in the market. And you know one bad onion will spoil the whole of the onions in the basket. Once you have one fake insurance or one insurance that does anything wrong, people say all other insurance companies are not good, that they will just take your money and run away and when it is time for them to pay they won’t be there. But with the regulators we have now, things have changed a lot.”
Balogun as a successful man is also an accomplished family man. A grandfather, he has been married for 32 years to his loving wife, Olufunmilayo, a native of Epe, Lagos State. The union is blessed with children.
With benefit of hindsight at 60, he could say thus: “Well, life has taught me that you should be humble, that two wrongs can never make a right. So when somebody is wrong or when somebody tells you that you are wrong and you also want to tell the person that he is wrong then you won’t get anywhere. Life has also taught me that we should be fair to everybody you meet, be nice, be good to people. And as much as possible render help to those who need it. And that is what God has asked us to do, you are not in this world for yourself alone.
You are in this world to make an impact and of course there are people you will meet; they want to make life miserable for you. But you see life is, it depends on how you take things that comes to you. If something bad comes to you and you take it bad and you are depressed, it affects everything from your brain to your toe. For me, I want to live a life and legacy where people will talk less of evil about you me,” he stated.
